After 35 Years in the Senate, Biden Remains Unknown to Most Americans

Following the amazingly well-executed plan by the Obama campaign of announcing their running mate (how many phone numbers and e-mail addresses did the campaign gather? And how did news of the pick not leak earlier?), this weekend’s USA Today poll shows vulnerability in Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.). Despite being well-known in Washington and by political junkies, the two-time presidential candidate is largely unknown to the rest of America.

As the poll shows, more than 50 percent of voters have either never heard of Biden or have no opinion of him.

For any politician, these numbers make it easier for your opponents to define you. For Joe Biden, gaffe-prone even when trying to give a compliment, this is a real problem.

Voters who do not yet know Joe Biden will be seeing a lot of Biden’s videos that show him to be a shoot-from-the-lip politician who can easily offend even those he is trying to please: These include his comments about Indian ownership of Delaware-based 7-Elevens and Dunkin’ Donuts, his “articulate and clean” comments about Sen. Obama and, strangely, telling Fox News’s Chris Wallace that he could appeal to South Carolina voters in part because Delaware was a slave state. Throw in the name Neil Kinnock and you have a devastating “Saturday Night Live” skit waiting to happen.

And, courtesy of the McCain campaign, more than 675,000 Americans have seen the video of Biden defending his comments calling Obama’s experience into question and praising John McCain.

Such clips are natural in campaigns — and you can bet the Obama camp has similar clips ready to go when John McCain selects a vice presidential nominee.

Biden’s selection rests on his post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In effect, his selection is due to two people: Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin. Clinton, for raising the issue of experience and a 3 a.m. phone call. Putin, for demonstrating what that call may be about.

Biden may indeed bolster Obama’s foreign policy credentials, though it would be hard to find a Democratic senator who didn’t. Still, it makes for an interesting couple — the smooth-talking “agent of change” and a man who has held the same Senate seat since Barack Obama was 11.

Any voters who go to the polls voting on experience will be voting for John McCain over Barack Obama. By selecting someone who’s been in the Senate for 35 years, Obama runs the risk of highlighting his own inexperience.

Or, as one prominent television journalist e-mailed me Saturday after watching the Obama/Biden events, “That’s what you get with an arranged marriage. A ceremony and separate beds.”

Ouch!